A moisture separator, also known as droplets separator, is a device for separating water droplets from steam. Moisture separators are widely used in the oil and gas industries to remove liquid droplets from a gas or steam. In general mist removal is necessary for several reasons, as explained below.                One reason is to increase the cycle efficiency of a power plant. Usually, in thermal power plants, the steam generated from a boiler is expanded several times in so called High (H), Middle (M) and Low Pressure Turbines (LPT). In a Nuclear Power Plant, during the first expansion in the HPT of the superheated or saturated steam coming from the boiler, nucleation phenomena occurs along the HPT cylinder and the resulting working fluid at the HPT exhausts is humid steam with a certain steam quality. Before re-heating the humid steam for efficiency reasons upstream MPT and LPT, a mechanical separation of the moisture from the saturated steam is accomplished through moisture separators: the resulting working fluid sent to the re-heater bundles is humid steam with low moisture content. Since the latent heat of evaporation of water is significantly high, it is preferred to eliminate the water content in the humid steam and send the collected water back in the thermodynamic cycle, instead of using a lot of energy for the moisture evaporation, limiting thermal loads on the bundles, as well, caused by the evaporation processes.        Another benefit achieved by removing the moisture content is the protection of downstream equipment from erosion damages. A type of moisture separators are the so-called wave-plate mist eliminators, which are widely used in the oil and gas industries as well as power generation industry, to remove liquid droplets from a gas or steam phase. Most separators use the principle of inertia, whereby larger water droplets tend to continue in a straight line when the direction of flow of an air/steam stream, in which these water droplets are carried, is changed. These wave-plate mist eliminators comprise a plurality of narrowly spaced wave-shaped bended metal sheets, oriented in line with the air/steam flow path. The two-phase flow (mixture of steam and water droplets) is forced to travel through the tortuous channels and to change repeatedly flow direction. The water droplets, that due to their inertia are not able to follow these changes in direction, deviate from the main flow and impact on the channel walls, where they adhere and coalesce. When the amount of liquid is sufficiently high a film and liquid rivulets are formed, which are continuously drained out from the wave-plate mist eliminator by gravity. The inertia of the drops and the drag of the steam control the motion of the drops through the channels.        
The present invention is directed towards a moisture separator having increased effectiveness compared to moisture separator in the prior art.